{"id":1137,"date":"2008-02-20T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2008-02-20T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2008-02-20T07:37:56","modified_gmt":"2008-02-20T13:37:56","slug":"sharing-some-art-work-from-charlotte-voakes-new-picture-book-cause-i-cant-wait-til-a-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1137","title":{"rendered":"Sharing some art work from Charlotte Voake’s new picture book ’cause I can’t wait ’til a Sunday . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

I love love<\/font> LOVE<\/font> Charlotte Voake’s<\/a><\/strong> picture books. I believe her last one<\/a><\/strong> was published in ’06, so it’s exciting to see that she has a brand-spankin’-new one, to be published this Spring. I’m quite fond of the uncluttered design and the open spaces in her art work, the singular, airy world she creates in her mind’s eye. There is an immediate accessibility and free-spirited sense to her finespun watercolor-and-ink work as an artist, and she never pulls the sash on the window to her child readers; her books are terrifically child-centered. I love her “freewheeling calligraphy” and how what she calls her doodling goes “all higgledy-piggledy over the page” (those last two quotes come from here<\/a><\/strong>). And who wouldn’t immediately fall in love with Ginger<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (1997), which won the 1997 Kate Greenaway Medal, and Ginger Finds a Ho<\/em>me<\/a><\/strong> (2003)? These books are funny, affectionate-without-being-cloying, and captivating in every way. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In their review for Ginger Finds a Home<\/em>, Booklist put it well when they wrote, “{n}eophyte picture-book artists who cram the pages with saturated colors and busy details have a lot to learn from Voake’s economical approach, which makes it easy for young children to sense the characters’ emotions and to care about the story’s outcome.”<\/font> I put that in a larger font, ’cause I’m thinking, word to that<\/em>. For their review of Ginger<\/em>, they praised the “unstudied look” of her illustrations “that heightens the comedy of the situation.” Voake also really knows how to appeal to a child’s sensibilities, and for all these reasons she’s always been one of my very favorite picture book artists. <\/p>\n

We feature the art work of illustrators \/ artists every Sunday here at 7-Imp. And I was nerdily excited to see that Voake had a new book and immediately looked into featuring an illustration or two from it. I managed to snag a spread to show you — with permission from the publisher, Candlewick, whom I heartily thank for this beautiful image. I just can’t wait until a Sunday in April to show you this (since we have illustrators lined up on Sundays all the way until then), so here is a picture book treat for you on a random week day — a spread from Voake’s new picture book Tweedle Dee Dee<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, to be released this April from Candlewick.<\/p>\n


\n

{TWEEDLE DEE DEE. Copyright \u00a9 2008 Charlotte Voake. Reproduced by permission of Candlewick Press, Cambridge, MA, on behalf of Walker Books Ltd., London}<\/center><\/p>\n

I’m lucky enough to have a copy of this book now. The rhyming text is based on the traditional song, “The Green Grass Grew All Around.”<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Once in a wood
\nthere was
\na tree,<\/p>\n

the finest tree
\nyou ever did
\nsee. <\/p>\n

And the green
\nleaves grew
\naround, around,
\naround, <\/p>\n

and the green leaves
\ngrew around.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And on that tree there was a branch (“the branch was on the tree, the tree was in the wood, and the green leaves grew around” — you get the idea). We eventually see the nest, the eggs in it, and three baby birds hatching from them. And in between each discovery, Voake pans back out with a wider view of the gorgeous, stately tree. She alternately takes the child reader out and then zooms back in. <\/p>\n

And all the qualities of her art work that I mentioned above that make me love her so? Well, they’re all here. Two children under a huge tree, prepping for a picnic on a gorgeous spring day? It’s the perfect setting for Voake, and she’s at her airy-est in this one. <\/p>\n

A lovely, lovely book. Don’t miss it, come April. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love love LOVE Charlotte Voake’s picture books. I believe her last one was published in ’06, so it’s exciting to see that she has a brand-spankin’-new one, to be published this Spring. I’m quite fond of the uncluttered design and the open spaces in her art work, the singular, airy world she creates in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}